I haven't used a mouse mat in years. but I guess I should since my last desk had the finish worn off. lasted a few years though, not bad for 100 bucks.
It does raise a question though, are all mouse mats created eaquel? a review would be a good idea.

A mousing surface review would be nice, but they're an absolute pain in the ass to do. The reason I say that is because everyone has different preferences on what type of mousing surface to use. Some like steel pads while others like hard plastic or glass. You also have people who like to use no pad at all. Finally, you have the people, like me, who won't use anything but a cloth mat. On top of that, you then have the choice of using teflon slick pads on the bottom of your mouse or using nothing at all and it becomes a very hard thing to do. Who knows, maybe you'll see a mouse mat roundup soon.

Here's a picture of my mouse pad. I've had this sucker for around two years now and it's still showing very little wear.
That's a MX1000 for size reference. Excuse the blurriness of the picture and the dirtiness of my desk.

__________________<+DougEdey> you getting PGR4 mitmit?
<mitmit> not me, Geoff is probably wanking like a lepper at the thought of it though

The Steelpad mouse mats are ace. I have one. When you first open the package you feel like you've just spent money on a crappy piece of plastic, but after a while you'll never want to use a standard mouse mat ever again.

If you get a mousemat roundup going, I demand (yes, that's right, I said demand) you go to woolworths and buy their £3.50 square teflon baking tray and include it in the roundup. Coupled with a little blu-tak to stick it to a desk this thing is easily the equal of all those namby pamby £20 mousemats I've tried at LAN's. Plus, it gets uber-ghetto points.

If you get a mousemat roundup going, I demand (yes, that's right, I said demand) you go to woolworths and buy their £3.50 square teflon baking tray and include it in the roundup. Coupled with a little blu-tak to stick it to a desk this thing is easily the equal of all those namby pamby £20 mousemats I've tried at LAN's. Plus, it gets uber-ghetto points.

You know I might just have to try this to see if it works as well as you say. I love a good ghetto solution.

If you get a mousemat roundup going, I demand (yes, that's right, I said demand) you go to woolworths and buy their £3.50 square teflon baking tray and include it in the roundup. Coupled with a little blu-tak to stick it to a desk this thing is easily the equal of all those namby pamby £20 mousemats I've tried at LAN's. Plus, it gets uber-ghetto points.

I assure you Hiren, it works (verified working for about 3 years and counting on my desk). It's pretty awesome and if you add some cellotape to yourmousefeet it's amazingly smooth (even without the tape, it's super duper).

I assure you Hiren, it works (verified working for about 3 years and counting on my desk). It's pretty awesome and if you add some cellotape to yourmousefeet it's amazingly smooth (even without the tape, it's super duper).

The problem with a baking tray is the tinny noise when the mouse is sliding around. This is why mats have become increasingly popular, and that they offer superior tracking for the really b*tchy laser optics of new mice.

I don't experience any "tinny" noise when the mouse is sliding around. There's a quiet friction noise, but no less than you're going to get when you're moving one object on another, and far less than I get moving the mouse over my desk.

Jamie; Laser mice are often considered inferior to LED mouses since the tech is younger. Eventually they'll definitely be better, but for now a lot of people consider LED mouses to be superior.

They allow for much higher sensitivities, but that doesn't translate into better tracking. For lasers, you need a non-uniform surface like an optical would, but you'd need a much more finer grit for that surface since the optics capture a much smaller surface area than an LED mouse would with its camera. Lasers help for very fine, per-pixel movements without having to turn down the sensitivity in software because laser optics natively scan at much higher resolutions, but they are finicky for regular use and even for games.

**edit: get some glossy clear office tape and lay them down width-wise across your desk to create a shiny mouse mat made of this tape. Try using an LED mouse on it and then a laser mouse. Do the same on a sheet of printer paper. You'll notice some very sporadic tracking behaviour.